Maybe being sick isn't a bad thing
by eclipse2012
Summary: Everyone knows that injuries are bound to occur when you go into the Labyrinth. So when Gale and his troop of friends enter for what they thought would be a regular job outing and Frederica gets sick, what's the team of adventures to do? Why, head back in to look for a cure of course! Rated for minor language usage


**A/N: Hi everyone! I've been off the net for the past few weeks because of exams-they suck-so if it looked like I dropped off the face of the earth, I didn't. **

**I was just occupied.**

**Ahem. Moving on, this is a concoction I somehow wrote while studying for exams-not that I plan on telling my parents-and it wouldn't leave me alone until I freaking wrote it down. Which was how I ended up with this little plot. I have absolutely no clue as to how I came up with this since it's really just to break my stupid writer's block (ugh…). But whatever. This is what my mind does when it's feeling random. And I have been told that I have issues, so, you know, live and let live.**

**Just to address some before story complications, the highlander is named Gale (that was what I choose to name him at the beginning of the game). And for those who haven't gotten to this point in the game, Frederica's informal name/nickname is Ricky. And just one last thing. I haven't beaten the game yet (I'm only in the fifth stratum), so I generalize a lot of the events, which means I'm also subject to factual mistakes. Please, don't be afraid to call me out on these. But anyways, please enjoy the story.**

**Warning: Rated for minor language.**

_Summary: Everyone knows that injuries are bound to occur when you go into the Labyrinth. So when Gale and his troop of friends enter for what they thought would be a regular job outing and Frederica gets sick, what's the team of adventures to do? Why, head back in to look for a cure of course!_

* * *

Maybe Being Sick Isn't A Bad Thing…

They'd been listening to coughing all night long. If Gale had to say one thing for sure, it was that no one had gotten a good night's sleep for the past two days.

It was supposed to be simple really. Just a job outing to plant a flower. And just when they'd found the spot, one of the stupid bees that had attacked them poisoned Ricky!

Wait, he'd better back up. He's skipping some important stuff.

It'd all started as a job request for the Golden Deer Pub. The Valerie had posted a job requesting that a group of adventures plant a seed that some dead guy had never been able to grow himself. They'd noticed it, saw that the reward was worthwhile, and took the job. It should have been as simple as it sounded.

And predictably, it wasn't, just as every other job request they took wasn't. They'd walked through freaking thorns and fought giant ostriches (Giant Moas to be exact, but who cares for the details?) just to get to the place, and the next thing they know, they're being attacked by bees!

Which brings him back to his previous stopping point. As Gale had said before, the bees got a lucky blow in on Ricky-or Frederica, as she was formally called. Of course, being her friends, they'd attempted to heal her, but Simon had ran out of power to fuel his healing magic. Which was a crappy situation to be in.

So that left them with only one option. They abandoned the quest in favor of returning to town to take care of Frederica. By the time they'd managed to get back, it was already sundown. They were lucky to have even been able to snag a room at the Rooster Inn. On the bright side, Ricky had managed to work the poison out of her body over night, but she was left with one nasty sickness because of it.

It really shouldn't have happened. Venturing through the Labyrinth: easy. Mapping the six stratums: cakewalk. Taking down the Yggdrasil Core: simplicity itself. A teammate getting sick because a freaking bee?

Gale believes that is a first.

As a result, they were stuck. For what had already been the better part of the last two days, the team has been taking turns caring for Frederica.

The first night was as rough as crap. They'd managed to move her out of the Inn the next morning and into Ragnarok, both their personal mansion and their base of operations. Gale groaned as he reminisced the first day they'd spent at Ragnarok after Ricky got sick. Man, that night had sucked…

* * *

***Flashback***

"Arthur! I need the first aid kit! Now!" Simon practically screamed.

"I'm on it, I'm on it! Quit freaking out!" the blond alchemist shouted in return.

Gale stared at the closed door on the other side of the room. While his teammates panicked, he was the only one who was staying level headed. Currently, he was in Ricky's room in order to keep an eye on the sick gunner. He sat right by her bedside, her small hand clasped tightly in his larger one. The highlander could hear Simon as he paced outside the door to the room. He was crowing over Frederica's condition again- sputtering what might as well have been nonsense about medicine, symptoms, and fevers- but Gale opted not to comment on it and simply make sure the poor girl wasn't over-crowded by her panicked teammates.

Whenever they decided to break the door down, that is.

He quietly took the lukewarm towel off Ricky's forehead and dipped it in the bowel of freezing water on the nightstand. Somewhere in the background, he could hear Raquna scolding Simon and Arthur on how loud they were being-not that she was doing any better than they were. Rosa, their maid, was attempting to pacify them, but from what he could tell, that wasn't working.

After some more yelling and –at one point-what might have been the sound of something breaking, the downstairs floor finally quieted down.

He sighed. The rest of his teammates were freaking out while Ricky was lying right in front of him, weakened and deathly pale. Her already paper-thin hair seemed even thinner than usual, and beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. A red flush had spread across her cheeks and her face was twisted into a pained scowl.

He grabbed a dry towel from the nightstand and dabbed her face off. God, even in her sleep, she looked miserable.

And then the door came crashing down.

His friends tumbled into the room in an ungainly heap. Gale groaned and resisted the urge to face palm himself out of sheer disbelief. Simon was supposed to be the responsible one. So how in the name of crap was he the only level headed one in the house?

He knew Murphy was going to come back and bite him for his next thought, but whatever. Murphy's law could go screw itself over for all he cared. For the moment, he was seriously wondering if this situation could get any worse.

***Flashback End***

* * *

He really should have known better than to ask himself that. Because guess what? Murphy decided to drop an anvil on his head. Metaphorically of course, but still.

* * *

***Flashback***

CRASH

Frederica's head jerked up. "Uhh…Gale?"

"Yes?"

"What was that?"

He debated upon whether or not he really wanted to know. Or even if he wanted to tell Ricky. Unfortunately, after the arduous night they'd spent at the Rooster Inn and then the chaotic evening they'd had at Ragnarok last night, he was honestly fed up with the chaos Ricky's sickness was causing.

Not that he was blaming her, of course.

However, despite how hard the past two nights had been, Ricky had finally gotten the strength to stay up for more than ten minutes. In Gale's eyes, that was a huge improvement in comparison to the few seconds she'd managed the first night they'd brought her home. She was eating extremely light, but at the current moment, soup and bread was all she could stomach.

Just as the highlander was about to answer Frederica's question, another crashing sound interrupted him. The blond sitting on the bed looked at him quizzically, to which he responded with a shake of his head.

He stood. "Go back to bed," the highlander told her, "You need your rest."

Frederica, seeing that she might as well-she was feeling tired anyway-gave him a small nod and curled up under the covers. Her glassy eyes slid shut, and Gale stuck around a few seconds longer than he needed to in order to make sure her breathing was steady.

When he exited the room and actually made his way down to the kitchen, he couldn't say he was surprised when he found it in shambles. Pots and pans were flung everywhere, and food supplies-mostly flour- were strewn about the floor. One of the cabinet doors was hanging only by its hinges, and was he seeing things, or was it smoldering?

Oh dear God help him. There was going to be hell to pay for this. And he had an idea of just who was responsible for the mess (cough*Arthur*cough).

When he entered the living room to find his teammates arguing again, he was nearly seething. Rosa was, once again, trying to soothe them-bless her heart- but no cigar. Raquna was trying to help her, but she only seemed to be angering them more than she was actually calming them down.

He'd give her points for trying, though.

As Arthur and Simon were immersed in a heated argument, Gale did everyone in the room a favor and abruptly grabbed the back of their heads and slammed their foreheads together.

That had to hurt.

Both teens issued a sound of pain, either in the form of a pained shout or a nearly hissed explicative.

"What the hell Gale?" Arthur rounded on the highlander.

His leader only gave him a glare. Now normally a glare was something Arthur could stomach, but when Gale glared at someone, you could be sure that the person on the receiving end of that glance was about to be screwed over.

And considering that the blond haired alchemist was on the short end of the stick, it probably wouldn't be as bad-they were teammates after all-but punishment was still in order.

"What happened?" the highlander growled out. It was taking all of his willpower to just keep his barely restrained anger limited to a simple glare.

When neither Simon nor Arthur offered any answers, he glance to Raquna.

The redhead gulped. "Well…you see…"

***Flashback end***

* * *

Yeah, that hadn't ended well for either of them. Even if Simon hadn't caused as much damage as Arthur did.

Nowadays, the team was fairly spread out. Raquna had been going to the pub to gather information from wandering adventurers who were often relaxing there. However, Gale-and everyone else for that matter-was debating upon whether or not she was gathering information or using it as an excuse to drink.

Arthur, in spite of his usual carefree and lazy nature, had been in contact with the Midgard Library in an attempt to see if the books had a cure to Ricky's illness. The blond-haired alchemist had been making regular trips every day to and from the library, despite it being a good ways away from Etria. This was probably the most surprising development, especially after all the trouble he'd caused in the past two days.

Simon's efforts were similar. He spent a lot of time visiting Radha Hall, searching their archives in an attempt to find a cure. He'd come up with a few leads, but all of them required the team to venture into the Labyrinth.

With how spread out they were right now, it simply couldn't be done. That, and they weren't about to risk their sick friend's safety.

As for Gale himself, he'd been spending the majority of the time by Ricky's bedside. He was tasked with keeping her comfortable and making sure she ate. He'd also volunteered for the position, although he wouldn't deny having his own reasons for doing so. That, and he'd done it ever since they'd brought Ricky back to Etria. Rosa had been assisting him, but for the most part, he was on his own.

* * *

Despite his willingness to look after Ricky while they gathered information, the rest of the team knew about Gale's clear attraction to Frederica. It was no big mystery.

However, the question they often found themselves coming back to was how could he not like her? She was cute-even Rosa would admit to that-could shoot a gun, and essentially kick monster butt whenever she felt like it. That, and she'd been with Gale ever since they all met up in Gladsheim. Even though she hadn't known any of them at the time, she trusted them enough to fight alongside them. When M.I.K.E. gave her memories back, she still stuck with them. When the same digital entity had threatened to turn her against them, she'd looked to them and their leader for guidance and protection. Just the fact that she stayed despite all the hardships they'd suffered was admirable.

Regardless, they were sure that Gale could do without the knowing glances, mostly from Arthur, but teasing him about it was just too fun. Despite how strict and high-strung he usually was, the moment you got him flustered, all of his composure jumped out the nearest window.

Of course, they would never tell him that they enjoyed giving him a hard time. It was an unspoken fact anyway.

* * *

Gale had to admit, Ricky was making progress. She was doing much better. She was managing to keep what she ate down, and she was able to stay awake for much longer periods of time in comparison to how she was two days before. Her voice was much stronger, and Gale was considering helping her walk around town that afternoon. Her illness was little more than a chronic cough now, but she still got the occasional upset stomach.

At the current moment, she was sitting up in bed eating some soup. It was all they'd attempted to give her in case she happened to get sick and throw it all back up. They'd started giving her bread just yesterday, and so far, she was faring just fine. The white nightgown Rosa put her in two days prior was in desperate need of washing, as was everything else in the room Ricky had stayed in, so getting the gunner out of the germ-infested room was imperative, both to her health and to her own social needs.

The highlander supposed there was no better time than the present to present her with the idea. "Ricky?"

The blond haired gunner looked up from her bowl of hot soup and directed her gaze to the highlander sitting by her bedside. "Yeah?" she asked softly. Despite the sickness, Ricky had always been slightly soft-spoken, if only out of politeness. Now when she decided to go commando, such as during fights or when she was serious about something, her voice was firm as steel.

"I was thinking we should try and get you outside of Ragnarok today," he stated, "you've been holed up in here for two days now. I think you're strong enough to try and get outside," Frederica stared at him silently, "But I could be wrong. I don't want to force you to do something you're not healthy enough to do."

She looked back down at her bowl of soup. "I…"

"Actually," Rosa walked into the room, "I think it would be beneficial for Miss Frederica to get outside. It's not healthy to stay in a confined space for too long while you're sick. It'll just make you sicker."

"You think so?" Gale inquired.

Rosa only nodded.

"I can try," Ricky said. She pushed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed, "I'm feeling much better now, so it couldn't hurt-"

The instant she attempt to stand, she stumbled. Gale's fighter's instincts kicked in and he stood in caught her in the blink of an eye. The both of them were blushing like mad, and a series of chuckles from Rosa only made it worse.

"Yes," the maid chortled, "I believe it would be very good for you to get out and get some fresh air. Maybe spend a little time with Gale perhaps?"

The mentioned highlander instantly began sputtering at the maid's implied date scenario, but his blond-hair companion (more like crush) was able to form a much more coherent response.

"S-shut up! It's not like that!"

The maid laughed a little more before regaining her polite demeanor. "Anyhow, can you come with me Miss Frederica? We need to get you a pair of clean clothes."

The two teammates were shocked out of their stupor by her sudden request. Gale assisted Ricky in steadying herself before she shakily walked over to Rosa. The maid led the gunner out of the room, leaving a still blushing Gale behind.

*A few minutes later*

Gale sat at the dining room table pensively as he waited for Frederica. It was hard to imagine that not two days ago, this room had been coated in a fine layer of flour-courtesy of Arthur and his apparent childish outburst.

Guess the punishment he assigned was sufficient.

Regardless, he wasn't usually the one who would take Frederica out to town, but with everyone else occupied with their own endeavors to help Ricky recover, he had little choice. And besides, it wouldn't be time wasted.

Hopefully.

He was shocked into attention as he heard a set of footsteps coming down the kitchen staircase. At first he assumed it was Rosa, since he expected Ricky to take a little time before she was finished, but hey, he'd been wrong before.

And he was wrong this time too. It was Frederica, contrary to his expectations. She was clad in her normal attire, and the hole that the bee sting had left when it punctured her abdomen seemed to have been mended-courtesy of Rosa no doubt. Other than her slight pallor, she looked about as healthy as ever.

She looked at him oddly, and it was then that he realized he'd been staring too long. He immediately redirected his gaze and stood, to which the blond opposite of him chuckled.

Wow. Smooth indeed.

"I thought you would be a bit longer," he began awkwardly.

Ricky let out a huff of indignation. "Who do you think I am? Of course I'm able to get ready-"

She was cut off by a sudden fit of violent coughs. So much so that her balance began to waver. Gale rushed over to the stairs and guided her down to the table.

He waited until she finished before he spoke. "That's why. You still aren't better yet Ricky."

The gunner sighed. "I know," she looked up to him with a small smile, "But I'm doing a lot better now! You've got to give me that!"

Gale couldn't help but smile himself. "True," he acknowledged, "but you still need to be careful."

"Fine…" she grumbled.

"Ah, Miss Frederica, Mister Gale," Rosa suddenly called. The duo turned to the staircase, only to fine the black haired maid staring at them from over the banister, "please be careful out there."

The two nodded and walked out.

* * *

*Elsewhere*

"Damn it!" Simon roared. He slammed the book he was reading shut and sagged back in his chair. His rubbed the bridge of his nose in agitation. Two days, and still no leads on Frederica's sickness. He'd looked up everything: monsters that administered poison-in this case pollen bees and army wasps, poison-induced illnesses, common colds, blood-related infections, the flu, everything. And yet he still had no idea of a cure to his ally's illness. He'd even gone as far as to look up strains of certain diseases as a precautionary measure; one could never be too sure when it came to illnesses, especially when one couldn't find any damn data on it.

"Still no luck Simon?" Quinn asked.

Simon turned to face him. "No," he sighed, "I've checked everything. I can't seem to find any leads whatsoever. Even when I checked the list of sicknesses that poison could cause, nothing like this was mentioned."

"I'm sorry," the man said, "this is all the information we have. If none of the books mention anything, then there's nothing I can do."

Simon cast his glance at the floor. "It's fine…"

"However…" Quinn began, "I do seem to vaguely remember an adventurer who was poisoned by the same type of bee you mention when you first came back from the Labyrinth. He was very ill for a long time. I don't know for sure, but I think he might have died from the sickness that came with it."

The medic stood from his chair. "Are you say that Frederica might die from this?"

"I don't know," the official placated, "It might have just been that he got too sick to fight it off. You friend is doing much better now, isn't she?"

"Yes, but still…"

The man clapped Simon on the shoulder. "I know you're worried," he soothed, "but you won't help your friend by panicking. You should keep searching for answers. I'm sure you'll find something."

Simon nodded. "Thank you sir."

"You're welcome," he walked away, leaving the medic to continue his search for a cure.

* * *

**A/N: well, there's the first chapter. This won't be a horribly long story-thank goodness-but it'll still be a decent length. I'm probably a bit rusty due to be off the net for so long, but hey, at least I'm trying.**

**I'll attempt to get the next chapter up as soon as possible, and now that I'm on summer break, updating is going to be a whole lot easier.**

**As usual, please R&R, and leave tell me what you think of this. Constructive criticism is welcomed, but please, no flames. **

**Until next time, this is Eclipse2012 signing off!**


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